Jade Empire

Jade Empire follows the style of the wuxia genre within a mythical setting inspired by ancient China. The player, who can be either male or female, progresses through an adventure based on traditional martial arts and can discover and develop new fighting styles: martial arts, weapon styles, magic styles, support styles, or transformation styles.

Combat is not turn-based, but is in real time, granting players control over how and when characters dodge or attack. In this fashion the player may change styles during combat and possibly initiate a Harmonic Combo.

Traditional role-playing statistics are not featured in this game; rather, they are replaced with just three: Body, Mind, and Spirit. These primary stats control the secondary stats of Health, Focus, and Chi (respectively), and the conversation skills of Charm, Intuition, and Intimidation. Focus is used by fighting with weapon styles (such as a longsword or a staff) or by choosing "focus mode", which slows the movements of other characters, allowing the player to attack at high speeds. Chi is a character's spirit energy.

The player can use it to heal himself, to charge up a powerful "chi strike" to deal large damage, or to use it as "mana" when casting spells or transformations. Health, focus, and chi can be replenished by collecting power-ups left by defeated enemies in combat or by using Focus Shrines and Spirit Fonts found in the game world.

Additionally, certain party members have the ability to add their power to yours-refilling your stats while they remain out of harm's way.

Certain aspects of Jade Empire's gameplay engine, dialogue and quest systems are handled in a way that is very similar to BioWare's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games for the Xbox and PC. Players can speak to NPCs in the game's towns and other areas, asking questions for information to learn more about the world, the storyline, and other characters. Many of these NPCs will offer the player side quests that can be completed for experience points and items. These quests often have more than one method of completion depending on whether the player chooses to follow the "High path" or the "Low path".

The player can respond to questions or take courses of action that are consistent with the philosophy he or she follows; different actions will affect a character's alignment and his or her ability to cast certain spells or equip certain items.

There is also a vertical-scrolling airplane shooter included in Jade Empire as a mini-game, which is triggered by certain events in the storyline. In the mini-game, only the health and chi bars are active. Chi is replenished by shooting enemies, and is used for special attacks specific to the mini-game. The yellow focus spheres will upgrade your primary cannon up to three times. Red health spheres refill your health bar as in the main game.

Prior to starting the game, the player must choose one of either six or seven playable characters, depending on the game version. The sex of the character is by far the most important factor at character creation, since it will determine the various romance options as well as the responses of many non-player characters throughout the story. There are no differences in combat capabilities between the sexes.

The default playable characters are labeled "fast" (Mind specialists), "magic" (Spirit specialists), "strong" (Body specialists), or "balanced." This class style determines which attributes grow at which rates (for example, a strong character will have a higher health reading than a fast character at the same body level).

The male playable characters are Furious Ming (fast, tattooed), Lu the Prodigy (balanced, stocky), Monk Zeng (magic, dressed as a Buddhist monk), and Tiger Shen (strong, heavy-set).

The female characters are Radiant Jen Zi (fast, diminutive), Scholar Ling (magic, contemplative), and Wu the Lotus Blossom (balanced, wide-eyed). Monk Zeng is only available in the Limited Xbox and Special PC editions of the game. The names of the characters can be customized prior to starting the game.

Other than sex-based differences, the Jade Empire plot does not distinguish among the player characters (e.g., all male characters will have the same dialog response options, and will be received the same way by the story). As a minor detail, some NPCs will give a vague description of the player character's appearance.

The player character models all share common expressive traits. Through most conversations, the faces of the playable characters are calm and expressionless. When choosing a rare humorous or witty response from dialog options, a slight, barely perceptible smile appears on the character models. When choosing a mean-spirited or angry response, a much more perceptible scowl shows itself. Many of the pre-generated video cut scenes are rendered separately for each player character model.

During the course of the game the player will meet various non-player characters. Some will have the willingness to join the player's party and thereby become a follower. Many more characters will not become followers, but will present opportunities for side-quests or casual conversation.

Jade Empire gives the player-character the option to form a romantic relationship with several of the non-player characters, including characters of the same sex. Successfully romancing a character results in them standing outside your tent on the eve of the battle against the golems, whereupon unless you choose to reject them, your character and the NPC will lean in to kiss (although if the character is of the same sex, the camera will pan away before the actual kiss itself).

Male characters can romance Dawn Star, Silk Fox or Sky. Female characters can romance Sky or Silk Fox. Male characters can also romance both Dawn Star and Silk Fox at the same time. If this is the case, the cutscene and dialog at the tent implies that Dawn Star and Silk Fox spent some time together in their grief and lead the player character off for a menage-a-trois.

When romancing a certain character, the opportunity arises to influence his or her way of thinking. For example, the normally calm and collected Dawn Star can be persuaded to stand up for herself and become an altogether less mellow person, effectively following the path of the Closed Fist.

95% Pelit (Finland)
Offers excellent drama in fresh, new settings. Hopefully, the unwashed masses will come to understand its greatness.

93% GameZone
It has style, depth, drama, and action all compact into one lengthy RPG.

90% Computer Games Magazine
Few games in the genre tell a story this well, and fewer still combine that intriguing tale with such absolutely superb game mechanics.

89% PC Zone UK
With a great story, tons of missions, beautifully rich settings, satisfying fighting and brilliant characterization, all swaddled in over 20 hours of play, Jade Empire has transcended its Xbox roots to reincarnate itself as a high-kicking, epic RPG for PC. The chi is strong with this one.

89% PC Format
Translates remarkably well to keyboard control.

Total of 29 reviews with the average score of 81%

100% GameSpy
By combining stunning visuals, an entertaining (and challenging) combat system, and one of the best stories in recent memory, the folks at BioWare have somehow managed to create yet another brilliant game.

100% Yahoo! Games
Enthralling and beautiful, Jade Empire melds adrenaline-inducing combat with a compelling RPG structure perfectly. Here's an RPG that anyone can enjoy -- Jade Empire is sheer pleasure.

100% Stuff
The first time we laid down a "Harmonic Combo" and watched as the body parts of our enemies literally rained down from the sky, we were hopelessly, head-over-heels in love.

100% Cheat Code Central
Jade Empire plays like an epic Chinese movie. Kung Fu is blended with ancient Chinese legends for a game that is unpredictable and captivating. It's just as amazing to watch as it is to play.

100% Detroit Free Press
Enemies can be vulnerable or immune to different attacks, which causes you to often evaluate your styles. And I love that you can change the difficulty even in the middle of missions. Whew!

100% VideoGamesLife
With a subtle, yet engrossing mix of comedy, intrigue, conspiracy, betrayal, mythology, magic, sadness, rage, joy and excitement wrapped up in a wonderfully charming oriental package, there are considerably worse ways of investing the 20-25 hours it'll take you to play through first time around.

Total of 84 reviews with the average score of 89%